EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been updated to correct that Brugger and Koert are running in District 10 for that county commissioner seat.

HUDSONVILLE — Republican candidates in Ottawa County sent a message to Ottawa Impact and the county GOP on Friday morning: They aren’t going anywhere.

“We called this conference to respond to and reject the Ottawa County GOP’s executive committee’s — which is controlled by Ottawa Impact — outrageous and hypocritical assertion that we Republican candidates that reject the Ottawa Impact brand withdraw from the campaign,” said John Teeples, who is running as a non-OI Republican for the county commission’s District 7 seat.

“We will not withdraw. We will not stand by and watch the Ottawa GOP and … Ottawa Impact dictate how voters should think or vote. We have primary elections for a reason and we will not tell voters how to think or act.”

The press conference was in response to the Ottawa County GOP voting in June to “denounce and condemn” conservative candidates not endorsed by the party — a historically unprecedented move prior to a primary election — that demanded that the 11 candidates targeted needed to withdraw from their respective races.

Read more: Ottawa County GOP 'condemns' 10 of its own candidates

“The Ottawa County Republican Party Executive Committee denounces and condemns Conservative Ottawa PAC as opposition to the Republican Party … and demands that all endorsed candidates, members and affiliates immediately cease to run for office as Republicans,” according to a resolution posted on the party’s website on June 25.

At the July 19 press conference in Hudsonville’s Veterans Park, five of the targeted county commissioner candidates addressed and decried the calls for them to withdraw, saying Ottawa Impact’s takeover of the county Republican Party has led to far-right extremism that is hurting residents.

“To say I’m not Republican is nuts,” said Jim Barry, non-OI county commission District 1 candidate and half-brother of longtime Republican Congressman Bill Huizenga.

Barry said, among other things, the OI-controlled county party wants to have closed primaries, where only voters registered with a given party can vote in that party’s primary.

Critics claim that closed primaries can exacerbate the radicalization that often occurs at the primary stage, when candidates must cater to their party’s “base” rather than the political center.

“They think they know better than you. They think you’re too dumb to be trusted to make those decisions,” Barry said. “Their end goal is to control who may call themselves a Republican.”

How we got here

Ottawa County has historically been conservative since its founding in 1831.

“This county has a tradition of being conservative. But it is not a county that has a tradition of being outrageous,” John “Field” Reichardt, a Grand Haven resident and well-known local politico, told this reporter in a 2022 interview.

The rise of Donald Trump in 2016, however, brought far-right ideology to local politics, exacerbated in 2019 by a global pandemic that resulted in divisive statewide shutdowns and mask mandates.

And with that came a new local group called Ottawa Impact, claiming to defend “the constitutionally protected rights of parents to make health and education decisions for their own children,” according to the group’s website.

The group was founded by self-described “parental rights advocates” Joe Moss and Sylvia Rhodea, who took issue with pre-K-6 school mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic that resulted in the temporary closure of the private Christian school Moss founded and where his children attended.

Now Moss and Rhodea are the chair and vice chair, respectively, on the county board of commissioners and have championed several controversial decisions that have resulted in five lawsuits against the board in a 14-month timeframe, four of which remain active to date.

Meanwhile, most of the long-known Republicans within the party were forced out or voluntarily left as the local GOP skewed farther right.

Ottawa Impact’s influence on the local GOP

As Ottawa Impact candidates campaigned in summer 2022, the county party also reflected a sea change, forcing out chair Rett DeBoer in May that year, then new chair Keith den Hollander being ousted seven months later.

After an internal party lawsuit over bylaws, the party selected Joel Studebaker, but he didn’t remain in the role for long.

The next month, Moss nominated Republican firebrand Kristina Karamo, who lost her bid against Democrat Jocelyn Benson in the 2022 state secretary of state race, to lead the state GOP.

Karamo tapped Studebaker to become her chief of staff, leading to the search for the county party’s third chair in less than a year: Brendan Muir.

Karamo’s tenure only lasted for 11 months before she was voted out, sparking another court battle that resulted in a judge ruling that former West Michigan Congressman Pete Hoekstra was properly selected in January to lead the MIGOP.

The Ottawa GOP has not officially recognized Hoekstra as the state party’s leader, which is telling to many non-OI Republicans.

“The current Ottawa County party does not even recognize Pete Hoekstra as the Michigan Republican chairman,” Reichardt said. “They still recognize Kristina Karamo, who everybody knows was out in beyond far right field, and that's where these folks are.”

Conservative Ottawa forms, backs candidates

Longtime Ottawa County conservative activist Kurt Van Koevering, said the new OI-led board of commissioners and GOP brought “chaos” to a historically well-respected county.

“For the past year, we have seen our Ottawa County Commission in chaos as they face numerous lawsuits, low employee morale and a large number of those employees seeking employment elsewhere,” Van Koevering said in a statement after forming Conservative Ottawa in 2023. “The Ottawa County Republican Party is not in much better shape as it is controlled by election deniers and individuals who find it their purpose to challenge and harass our excellent elected leaders.”

The owner and publisher of the Zeeland Record newspaper said he helped to form the entity in order to restore stability to the county.

“The chaos has led to uncertainty for the direction of the county and has raised concerns,” he said. “There are also concerns this could affect attracting new businesses along with potential employees to our county due to the volatile political environment.”

Part of the Conservative Ottawa effort was to back traditional conservative candidates for commissioners and other countywide offices, including Jim Barry, Huizenga’s brother, and Jordan Jorritsma, one of the county delegates to sue the party in December 2022 (both are running for county commissioner seats).

That seemingly drew the attention of the Ottawa GOP, which on May 16, announced its candidate endorsements for several county, state and U.S. offices, bucking decades of tradition where parties traditionally have waited until after the primary election.

“This year, in the face of severe Democrat attacks on our county, our party has taken a proactive stance to ensure that our voice is heard loud and clear. ... It is imperative that we elect conservative leaders who will champion traditional values and protect our constitutional freedoms,” the Ottawa County GOP announced on its website.

Van Koevering said it was a wide departure from what county politics used to be.

“It was a long-standing practice that the party didn’t endorse in the primary as part of ‘big tent’ policy. It was a desire that every candidate had a fair opportunity to compete in the primary, and then unite as an organization in the general election,” he said. “They've taken over the party, and they claim that these Republicans are not Ottawa Impact, but you look at their endorsements, they're totally Impact.”

Van Koevering said it’s more about loyalty to Ottawa Impact and candidates’ willingness to “kiss the ring.”

The county GOP and Ottawa Impact have never responded to this reporter’s request for comment.

Van Koevering said the fact that Huizenga, a seven-term U.S. congressman, received only a handful of votes cast from his own home county underscores his view; Muir received almost all of the nearly 190 votes.

“I don't think this is the party. This is a group of individuals who have taken over the mantra of the Ottawa Republican Party, but they're not acting on behalf of the party,” he said earlier this month. “They are doing their own thing, because you have a lot of Republicans outside that are opposing them, which is something that's never happened before.”

Van Koevering also pointed to the fact that the Ottawa GOP is still backing Ebel, instead of Jorritsma, after she lost the recall election in May to Democrat Chris Kleinjans by a 20% margin.

“To me, that’s saying they're not listening to the voters,” Van Koevering said. “They are just focusing on their agenda and their agenda only.”

In June, Conservative Ottawa announced its own endorsements, in an effort to communicate with voters that there were clear divisions between what the current county party is and what it could be again.

Reichardt said he supports what Conservative Ottawa is trying to do.

“The Conservative Ottawa group, and I know many of the people in it, are what the Republican Party of Ottawa County has been: a somewhat solid, somewhat boring, highly effective organization that has elected Republicans that have really run this county,” he said.

“Even though I disagree with many of the people in Conservative Ottawa, because I'm an old-fashioned moderate Republican, I still respect their integrity and their commitment to bringing this county back to an even keel.”

The alternative endorsements, however, drew the official party’s ire.

Condemnations and censures

The Ottawa GOP approved a resolution in June to “denounce and condemn” Conservative Ottawa’s decision to back alternative conservative candidates for the primary, following the official party’s lead.

The reason given: Conservative Ottawa was working across the aisle with local progressives.

On the “condemned” list by the county party are:

• Barry, Huizenga’s brother who is running for District 1 commissioner against OI Commissioner Gretchen Cosby in the primary
• Jacob Bonnema, running for re-election as the District 4 commission. A former member of OI, Bonnema publicly split from the group in March 2023, citing differing views in governance, transparency and policy.
• Eric DeBoer, who was appointed as the Ottawa County undersheriff after Valerie Weiss retired in February this year and current Sheriff Steve Kemper announced he would not seek re-election. DeBoer faces OI-endorsed Jon Anderson, a former Riverside County, Calif., sheriff’s department commander who co-owns Bullet Hole Firearms and Training in Holland. Moss and Rhodea championed Anderson being appointed as the interim Ottawa County administrator in March, despite the fact he was seeking a separate elected office.
• Shawn Haff, running for the District 6 seat on the board of commissioners. He will face OI-backed Commissioner Kendra Wenzel, who was appointed to the position after former commissioner Kyle Terpstra resigned suddenly in November.
• Jorritsma, running as the non-OI Republican candidate in District 2 for the county board of commissioners seat.
• Phil Kuyers, the only Republican that lost in 2022 who is seeking a rematch. He will face OI Commissioner Roger Belknap in August.
• Sarah Matwiejczyk, running for the county prosecutor spot after current Prosecutor Lee Fisher, a Republican, announced he would not be seeking another term.
• Mark Northrup, the current mayor of Hudsonville, running as the non-OI candidate against Moss in the county commission’s District 5 in the primary.
• Teeples, running as the non-OI candidate in District 7 after current Republican Commissioner Rebekah Curran opted to not seek a second term. Teeples will face OI-endorsed Republican Rachel Atwood on Aug. 6.
• Richard Van Dop, running as one of two non-OI Republicans in District 11 for a county commission seat. Although the county GOP endorsed OI Commissioner Allison Miedema for re-election, it did not list fellow non-OI Republican Sara Bajama on the “condemned” list.
• Josh Brugger, running as the non-OI Republican candidate in District 10 for a county commissioner seat after longtime conservative Commissioner Roger Bergman announced his upcoming retirement at the end of his current term. Brugger will face OI-endorsed Jason Koert in the primary.

Jorritsma said as a lifelong Republican, he is “disappointed” that he had to defend himself to the current leadership of a party he loves.

“I’m a conservative Republican. I’m pro-life, pro-freedom and pro-family. I think people are trying to confuse that. We have a message of stability and saving you money,” he said.

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Northrup said the only oath that any elected official needs to swear allegiance to is to uphold the state and federal constitutions, which don’t discriminate between Republicans and Democrats.

“The Constitution requires all of us to be wingmen — irrespective of party,” he said. “Democrats are not my enemies, nor are people in my own party my enemies. The cult of Ottawa Impact needs to end in 18 days — and it will end. Our county will be restored with honesty and integrity.”

— Contact Sarah Leach at SentinelLeach@gmail.com. Follow her on Twitter @SentinelLeach. Subscribe to her content at sentinelleach.substack.com.